An International Women’s Day rally in Lisbon, Portugal
Credit: © Sonia Bonet, Shutterstock

Monday, March 8, is International Women’s Day (IWD). It is observed annually in many countries around the world. It serves to recognize and celebrate women’s cultural, economic, political, and social achievements and to promote women’s rights and gender equality. In some countries, IWD is a national holiday. In Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the day falls within Women’s History Month.

Many different groups, such as businesses, charities, governments, international and nongovernmental organizations, and schools organize activities and events for International Women’s Day. Some groups declare a different IWD theme each year. Many people observe the day with political actions, including marches and rallies for women’s rights, and protests against sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and violence against women. Others participate in such activities as conferences, exhibitions, labor strikes, performances, and sporting events. Women in some countries traditionally receive flowers and small gifts, or time off from work.

International Women’s Day has its origins in the women’s labor and suffrage (voting rights) movements of the early 1900′s. The first National Woman’s Day was observed in the United States on Feb. 28, 1909. It was designated as such by the Socialist Party of America to commemorate a women garment workers’ march in New York City in 1908 demanding suffrage and better work conditions. In 1910, an International Conference of Working Women met in Copenhagen, Denmark. German attendees Luise Zietz and Clara Zetkin proposed an annual international women’s day to further women’s rights, especially woman suffrage. The proposal was received with great enthusiasm.

International Women’s Day first was held in 1911. It was observed on March 19 by more than 1 million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. Men and women participated in hundreds of demonstrations. They demanded the right of women to vote and hold public office, and protested sex discrimination in employment. People later began observing IWD on March 8. This date corresponds with protests by Russian women in the 1910′s against World War I (1914-1918) and conditions preceding the Russian Revolution of 1917. In 1975, as part of International Women’s Year, the United Nations (UN) began celebrating IWD on March 8. Today, IWD is celebrated in more than 100 countries.

Three woman suffragists cast votes in New York City around 1917. Woman suffragists fought for the right of women to vote. The 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, passed on Aug. 18, 1920, granted this right to women throughout the country.
Credit: © Everett Collection/Shutterstock

Aug. 18, 2020, is the 100th anniversary of the addition of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The amendment granted women the right to vote. It reads, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

During colonial times, the right to vote was generally limited to adult males who owned property. After the United States became an independent nation, the Constitution gave the states the right to decide who could vote. One by one, the states abolished property requirements. By 1830, nearly all the states had given all white male adults the vote.

In the mid-1800’s, such leaders as Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone began speaking out for equal rights for women. Suffrage (the right to vote) soon became their chief goal. People who supported the drive for suffrage were called suffragists. The woman suffrage movement gained strength after 1870, when the 15th Amendment extended voting rights to Black men.

The House of Representatives approved the 19th Amendment in 1918, but the Senate defeated it. The House passed the amendment again on May 21, 1919. The Senate finally passed it on June 4. However, the amendment still needed the approval of three-fourths of the states. On Aug. 18, 1920, the Tennessee legislature approved the amendment, giving the measure the support it needed. On August 26, U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the amendment.

By the late 1900’s, women had the vote in almost every country where men had it. In 2015, women in Saudi Arabia voted in and won elections for the first time. Vatican City is the only country in which women are not allowed to vote but men have the right. However, some countries still deny voting rights to many or all their people.

February 14, 2020

Tomorrow, February 15, is the 200th anniversary of the birth of the women’s rights activist and reformer Susan B. Anthony in 1820. She is best known for helping organize the woman suffrage movement, which worked to get women the right to vote. Anthony, who was arrested for voting in 1872, died on March 13, 1906. In 1920, 100 years ago, her lifelong dream came true as the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States became law, giving women the right to vote.

Susan B. Anthony was born 200 years ago on Feb. 15, 1820. Credit: Library of Congress

Anthony was born in Adams, Massachusetts. Her family were Quakers, who became known for their belief in the equality of men and women. Anthony’s family supported major reforms, such as temperance, the campaign to abolish alcoholic beverages, and the abolition of slavery.

From 1839 to 1849, Anthony taught school. She then joined the temperance movement. But most temperance groups consisted of men who did not allow women to help the movement. In 1852, she attended a temperance rally in Albany, New York, but was not allowed to speak because she was a woman. Soon after, she formed the Woman’s State Temperance Society of New York.

The Anthony dollar, minted for circulation in 1979 and 1980, honored woman suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony. A profile of Susan B. Anthony is on the front and the American eagle is on the reverse. Credit: WORLD BOOK photo by James Simek

Through her temperance work, Anthony became increasingly conscious of the disparity in rights between men and women. In 1851, she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a leader of the women’s rights movement. The two women became close friends and co-workers. Soon, Anthony devoted herself completely to women’s rights and became a leader of the movement.

Before and during the American Civil War (1861-1865), Anthony and Stanton supported abolitionism. After the war, however, they broke away from those who had been involved in the abolitionist movement. Many of these people showed little interest in woman suffrage and supported the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment gave the vote to black men, but not to women. In 1869, Anthony and Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association and worked for a woman suffrage amendment to the Constitution. In 1872, Anthony voted in the presidential election and was arrested and fined $100 (a large sum at the time), but she vehemently refused to pay it.

From 1881 to 1886, Anthony and Stanton coedited three volumes of a book called History of Woman Suffrage. Anthony published a fourth volume of the book in 1902. In 1904, she established the International Woman Suffrage Alliance with Carrie Chapman Catt, another leader of the suffrage movement.

November 5, 2018

Tomorrow, November 6, is election day in the United States and voters will have the chance to choose the people who decide the direction and tone of government. Today, most U.S. citizens over 18 years of age have the right to vote. This was not always so, however. Voting rights have been won gradually—and with much difficulty—over the history of the United States. In most places, only white men who owned property were originally allowed to vote. The property requirement was gradually dropped, but it was not until 1870 that the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States ensured that men of all races could vote. To the dismay of many Americans, however, the amendment excluded women from voting. This exclusion fueled the woman suffrage movement that fought for decades to get women the right to vote. A few states and territories began giving women the right to vote in 1870, but for most American women, voting was illegal. On Nov. 5, 1872, 146 years ago today, a woman named Susan B. Anthony dared to vote—and she was arrested for it.

Susan B. Anthony helped organize the woman suffrage movement, which worked to get women the right to vote. Credit: Library of Congress

Anthony, a steadfast reformer who had already campaigned against slavery and the drinking of alcohol, helped organize the woman suffrage movement. In November 1872, Anthony and a group of women cast their ballots for president in Rochester, New York, days after persuading election inspectors to register them. The women were arrested for illegal voting, but Anthony, the “ringleader,” alone went to trial. 

Women on horseback participate in a suffrage parade in Washington, D.C., in 1914. Women at last gained the right to vote in 1920. Credit: Library of Congress

The trial’s presiding judge, Ward Hunt, did not let Anthony argue on her own behalf, and he directed the jury to find her guilty (instead of letting the jury decide). Judge Hunt fined Anthony $100 (a large sum at the time), but she vehemently refused to pay it. At the end of the trial, which attracted nationwide attention, Anthony made a speech that ended with the slogan “Resistance to Tyranny Is Obedience to God.” She was then released and faced no further prosecution.

The Anthony dollar, minted for circulation in 1979 and 1980, honored woman suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony. Credit: WORLD BOOK photo by James Simek

In the following decades, Anthony published several books arguing for woman suffrage. She also established the International Woman Suffrage Alliance and served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Unfortunately, Anthony died in 1906—14 years before women finally won the right to vote with ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. In 1979 and 1980, the U.S. government honored Anthony by minting $1 coins bearing her likeness. She was the first woman to be pictured on a U.S. coin in general circulation.

U.S. voting rights were not exactly settled as of 1920, however. The Twenty-third Amendment (1961) allowed citizens in Washington, D.C., to vote for president. The Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964) prohibited the forced payment of poll taxes to vote. The Twenty-sixth Amendment (1966) lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. And, to counter voter suppression of minority groups, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination (with regard to voting and many other things) because of a person’s color, race, national origin, religion, or sex. 

March 29, 2017

World Book continues its celebration of Women’s History Month with a look at Jeannette Rankin, who in 1916—almost four years before women had the right to vote nationally in the United States—became the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress. A Republican, Rankin served from 1917 to 1919 as congresswoman at large from Montana. “I may be the first woman member of Congress,” she observed upon her election in 1916. “But I won’t be the last.” Rankin was prescient: today, more than 100 women serve in the U.S. Congress. In 2016, a century after Rankin’s historic win, former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also made history by becoming the first woman to be a major party’s nominee for president of the United States. This Sunday, April 2, will mark 100 years since Rankin took office in 1917.

Jeannette Rankin. Credit: Library of Congress

Rankin was born on June 11, 1880, near Missoula, Montana. She was the oldest daughter of eight children born to a rancher father and a schoolteacher mother. Rankin graduated from Montana State University (now the University of Montana) in 1902 with a B.S. degree in biology. She later attended the New York School of Philanthropy (later the Columbia University School of Social Work). She worked briefly as a social worker in Spokane, Washington, before entering the University of Washington in Seattle. While there, Rankin became involved in the woman suffrage (right to vote) movement. In 1910, women in Washington state gained the right to vote. Around this time, Rankin became a professional lobbyist for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). In 1911, Rankin became the first woman to speak before the Montana legislature, in which she made her case for woman suffrage. Her speaking and organizing efforts helped Montana women win the right to vote in 1914. Along with Nevada, where women also won the vote that year, only 11 states had granted full voting rights to women by this time.

Rankin’s work as a social activist—as well as financial assistance from her brother Wellington, an influential member of the Montana Republican Party—helped her 1916 campaign for one of two at-large seats for the U.S. House of Representatives in her home state. Rankin ran as a progressive, emphasizing social welfare issues and pledging to work for a constitutional woman suffrage amendment. She came in second to Democratic Representative John M. Evans, winning Montana’s second House seat and becoming the first woman to serve in Congress.

Rankin began her service on April 2, 1917, when a special joint session of Congress was called after Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare on all Atlantic shipping. That evening, President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, stating that “the world must be made safe for democracy.“ A committed pacifist, Rankin voted against U.S. participation in World War I (1914-1918). “I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war,” she told the House.

Later in 1917, Rankin advocated the creation of, and was appointed to, a Committee on Woman Suffrage. In early January 1918, Rankin opened the first House floor debate on a constitutional amendment on woman suffrage. “How shall we explain … the meaning of democracy if the same Congress that voted for war to make the world safe for democracy refuses to give this small measure of democracy to the women of our country?” The resolution narrowly passed in the House, but it died in the Senate. American women finally won the vote in August 1920 when the 19th Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution.

In 1940, Rankin was elected to the House of Representatives for one term. She won fame in 1941 as the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. entry into World War II (1939-1945). “As a woman I can’t go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else,” she said. Rankin’s votes against the nation’s entry into each world war ultimately earned her widespread respect for upholding her pacifist principles.

As a private citizen, Rankin also opposed U.S. involvement in the Korean War (1950-1953) and the Vietnam War (1957-1975). In January 1968, inspired by the nonviolent protest tactics of the Indian leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, Rankin led the Jeannette Rankin Brigade, in which some 5,000 Vietnam War protesters marched on Wash­ington, D.C. The marchers presented a peace petition to House Speaker John McCormack of Massachusetts.

Rankin never married. She died on May 18, 1973, in Carmel, California. At the time of her death, at age 92, Rankin was considering another run for a House seat to protest the Vietnam War. A statue of Rankin represents Montana in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Websites:

• United States House of Representatives – History, Art & Archives/Jeannette Rankin’s Historic Election: A Century of Women in Congress
• United States House of Representatives – History, Art & Archives/Historical Highlights: Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana

Other Behind the Headlines posts:  

• Women’s History Month: International Women’s Day (March 8, 2017)

March 14, 2017

World Book continues its celebration of Women’s History Month with a look at Australian feminist (promoter of women’s rights) and campaigner for woman suffrage (voting rights) Vida Goldstein (VY duh GOHLD styn). Goldstein was instrumental in helping to win the right to vote for Australian women in 1902—the second country to grant women full voting rights after New Zealand (1893). In 1903, Goldstein became the first woman to be nominated for election to the Australian Parliament.

Vida Goldstein was an Australian feminist and campaigner for woman suffrage.
Credit: National Library of Australia

Vida Jane Mary Goldstein was born on April 13, 1869, in Portland, Victoria. Her parents were campaigners for social reform. The family moved to Melbourne in 1877. In 1886, Goldstein graduated from Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Melbourne.

Goldstein began her suffrage work by collecting signatures with her mother for the Women’s Suffrage Petition. The petition, signed by 30,000 women, was presented to the Parliament of Victoria in 1891. In 1899, Goldstein became an organizer for the United Council for Women’s Suffrage. From 1900 to 1905, she produced and edited the monthly feminist journal The Australian Woman’s Sphere.

The Commonwealth Franchise Act of 1902 granted all non-Aboriginal Australian women the right to vote on a national level. In 1903, Goldstein founded the Women’s Federal Political Association (later the Women’s Political Association) to educate women in political matters. She became the group’s president. In 1903, with the group’s support, Goldstein became the first woman in the British Empire to run for election to a national parliament. Although her campaign for a seat in the Senate was unsuccessful, she received nearly 51,500 votes. Goldstein ran unsuccessfully for the Australian federal Parliament four more times: in 1910 and 1917 for the Senate, and in 1913 and 1914 for the House of Representatives.

In 1909, Goldstein launched the journal, The Woman Voter. In 1911, she visited England at the invitation of the Women’s Social and Political Union and spoke to huge crowds on the suffragist cause.

With the outbreak of World War I (1914-1918), Goldstein shifted her attention to the pacifist movement. A pacifist is a person who is opposed to war. She campaigned against the war and conscription (compulsory military service). Goldstein became chairperson of the Australian Peace Alliance. In 1915, she cofounded the Women’s Peace Army, which mobilized women against war. In 1919, Goldstein attended the Women’s Peace Conference in Zurich, Switzerland. Afterward, Goldstein took on a less prominent role and devoted much of her time to providing counseling services. She continued to write in favor of women’s rights and in opposition to war. She died on Aug. 15, 1949, in South Yarra, a suburb of Melbourne.

World Book articles:

• Australia, History of (The struggle for women’s rights)
• Australia, History of (Social reforms)
• Women’s movement

December 14, 2015

Women in Saudi Arabia were elected to office for the first time in landmark municipal elections held on December 12. It was also the first time that Saudi women were allowed to vote and to run for office. Although women won only a fraction of the total number of local council seats—about a dozen of the 2,106 available—it was seen as a turning point in this ultra-conservative monarchy in which women are still deprived of many basic rights, including driving or traveling abroad without a male relative’s permission. Saudi Arabia had been the only other country besides Vatican City that denied women the right to vote where men had the right.

Women made up a small portion of the electorate in the elections. Only 130,000 women registered to vote, compared with 1.36 million men. While overall turnout was a little less than 50 percent, the turnout of women was nearly 80 percent in some places. Nevertheless, local councils have limited powers. They oversee urban development projects in their districts, but have no final say on how the public money is spent. A third of 3,159 municipal council seats nationwide are appointed, rather than elected.

The national government of Saudi Arabia is a monarchy under the Al Saud ruling family. In 2005, municipal elections were held throughout Saudi Arabia for the first time. Only men were allowed to vote in them. They were the country’s first political elections of any kind since 1963. In 2011, King Abdullah announced that women would be allowed to vote and run for office in the 2015 elections.

Many people hoped the vote would pave the way for more progress on women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. Prince Fahad bin Sultan, the governor of Tabuk province where two women won seats, called the women candidates’ victories a “major shift” and said he hoped they would encourage more women to participate in future elections.

Additional World Book articles:

• Woman suffrage
• Women’s movement
• Saudi Arabia (2011) – A Back in Time article
• Saudi Arabia (2013) – A Back in Time article
• Saudi Women Granted Vote (2011) – A Behind the Headlines article
• Saudi Women to be Lashed for Driving (2011) – A Behind the Headlines article